What Really Matters to God
It doesn't matter how wicked and sinful you are and have been in life. The gospel isn't about how bad you are but about a God who loves you no matter how vile or wicked you are or have been.
It isn't the truth about you that will set you free but knowing the truth about who God is that will set you free!
Jesus taught in John 16:8 that the Holy Spirit only convicts sinners of one sin.
That sin is their unbelief
about who God is and what He has done for them through the work of the cross.
The work of the Holy Spirit is to bring unbelievers to a place of faith in Jesus. It isn't about how wicked they are or have been but all about how good God is! Only the goodness of God will lead a person to repentance (Romans 2:4). Notice, repentance is about seeing God as a good God. God tells us:
"O taste and see that the LORD
is
good: blessed
is the
man
that
trusteth in him” (Psalm 34:8).
God desires His people to taste and see He is a good God. Why? Because God knows that until we are convinced in our hearts He will be good to us and is truly a good God, we won't trust Him.
Repentance is all about trusting God.
God's desire is to bring us to a place of blessing, but that can only take place when we trust Him. So it is His goodness we can taste and see that helps persuade our hearts to the fact He is a good and trustworthy God.
This entire world fell into sin, not because Adam and Eve committed some horrible, super evil and wicked sin. Adam didn't cheat on Eve with a gorilla, and Eve didn't start a forest fire and burn down the garden of Eden. The fall happened because someone stole some fruit.
Sin in any form is devastating and always leads to death.
Religion loves to magnify the sins of people. They do so to threaten them with God's wrath and scare them into repenting to escape their just reward and punishment. Repentance is important but the question is:
are we getting people to repent from something or to someone?
Religion wants people to stop sinning, but Jesus came to set people free from sin. If you are going to use your
“will power”
to stop sinning then your faith is in your ability to keep that promise to God. Or you can put your faith in the One who overcame sin on your behalf, has the power to set you free from sin, and can actually make you dead to sin.
How you view repentance will determine if you make God a promise He knows you can't keep or if you come to Him based on the guaranteed promises He made to you, which He has the power to keep.
